


Battling for Bronze

by morrezela



Series: Olympic Swimmers [1]
Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Alternate Universe - Sports, Knotting, M/M, Mpreg, Swimming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-29
Updated: 2013-08-29
Packaged: 2017-12-25 00:44:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/946664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morrezela/pseuds/morrezela
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jensen Ackles is an omega standing in the way to Jared Padalecki’s Olympic bronze medal in swimming. But Jared believes in beating his rival fair and square. When somebody tampers with Jensen’s medication, he volunteers to help out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Battling for Bronze

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: This isn’t real. The people mentioned belong to themselves. I am receiving no remuneration from this.
> 
> Warnings: A/B/O universe, MPreg, Knotting, mentions of miscarriage and abortion, sports!fic. 
> 
> A/N: I have no idea how I managed to dream up a sports fic, but here it is. Maybe it’s my subconscious flipping its finger at the Russian Olympic games and their gay bans.
> 
> I also managed to wrangle this into filling two bingo card squares. It fills my trope bingo card of ‘Rivals to Lovers’ and my homebrewbingo card square for ‘Underdogs.’
> 
> All mistakes that you find are my own.

That Jared has something to prove is an understatement. His spot on the Olympic swim team was only given to him by default. The guy that was supposed to be going got caught doping, so Jared’s alternate position turned into a chance at glory. He is good. Jared knows he is, but the world doesn’t.

Still, Jared has reasonable expectations of himself. He isn’t going to win gold. His times just haven’t been the best this year, and miracles aren’t an everyday occurrence. He is looking at bronze, and that is only if he can out swim Ackles.

Jensen Ackles is four years Jared’s senior and an omega to boot. He has a slew of Olympic medals to his name, not one of them gold. He has had a good career. Jensen has always been a solid performer. He is steady, dependable and amazingly photogenic. He is just the kind of swimmer Team USA wants on its relay group. Jensen doesn’t take risks that jeopardize the team, and his pretty face sells new stories.

But this is Jensen’s last Olympics. He is old. In another four years, dependable isn’t going to cut it, and Jensen’s swimming shows exactly how much he knows that. He hasn’t been playing it safe lately. He managed to eek out a gold at the last World Championships, though Jared doesn’t expect that of him this time around.

Rumor is that Jensen damn near tore his rotator cuff getting that shiny medal around his neck. Jared has watched the footage of that race over fifty times. He knows exactly which stroke was too much for Jensen, knows the moment that his movements went lame. He is lucky he had such a lead on his competitors.

Jensen can’t risk that at the Olympics. If he blows his shoulder, he’ll blow it all. Better to safely medal than get pulled out of the pool by the medics. Publicity is great and all, but not even Jensen’s pretty omega looks can undo that sort of damage. Not when word on the street is that he is hanging up his speedos after the games are done.

Jared has seen the message boards and blogs. Some of the fans seem to think that he is going to give Ackles a break in the pool. They’re teammates after all, and Jared has one more games in him so long as he stays out of trouble.

But the next Olympics is going to be _Jared’s_ last, and that is assuming he makes the cut. Like fuck is he going to let Old Man Ackles have it easy this time around. Jared is going to go home with a medal around his neck, and if Ackles doesn’t get his final glory? Boo-fucking-hoo.

His race isn’t for another three days. It is making him antsy, and he spends way more time hanging out in the concession areas than he should. Junk food has this siren’s song that his coach swears will be the death of his career. It isn’t that bad. Gummy bears and Twizzlers aren’t loaded with fat at least.

Jared is paranoid about getting caught though, so he takes his contraband sweets and hides out in the skeeviest corner he can find. He doesn’t dare go back to his room. His coach might go through his trash and find the empty wrappers.

The last thing he expects to find in the shaded alcove is Jensen Ackles. He isn’t the type to stand in creepy places shaking and sweating. That behavior is for the guys who are doping and haven’t gotten their fix in a while because they’ve trying to dodge their drug tests. 

Then again, Ackles wouldn’t be the first guy to turn to some illegal substances to keep from fading into obscurity. 

Jared is about to ask him what is wrong when the breeze shifts. To his stomach’s credit, it is the first to report in. It informs him that there is no way it is going to allow him to eat near whatever rotten substance is making that smell. His cock is a little slower, but its message is a more succinct, “Fuck. Now.” Thankfully, they’re responding to two different scents.

“Ackles?” Jared asks dumbly. 

Glassy green eyes turn in his direction. Jensen looks hopeless. His face is pale, and he looks like he is going to throw up. “Somebody fucked with my birth control,” he says.

Jared swallows and nods dumbly. The likelihood that Jensen messed up a medication that he has been on for years is laughable. For it to be some manufacturer’s mistake would be a bigger coincidence than Jared believes in. Sabotage makes a lot of sense.

Not only is Jensen a contender for the medal podium, he is also an omega. Not everybody is exactly down with the idea of him beating out alphas and betas. There is still a contingent of people in the world who think that omegas shouldn’t be allowed into the games at all.

Even the Olympic rules clearly state that an omega in heat cannot compete. It is considered a distracting factor that could throw a game. Over eighty percent of their fellow swimmers are alphas, most of them unmated. They’d be all over Jensen in a flash if he even tried to dip a toe in the water.

“That’s a shitty thing to do,” Jared says. He had wanted to beat Ackles, not keep him from even competing.

Jensen barks out a laugh. “You’re telling me. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. The fuck am I going to do?”

“I don’t know, but you cannot freak out here,” Jared tells him.

“Watch me,” Jensen shoots back with that glare of defiance Jared has seen a hundred times before. It is the look he gets in the locker room right before he goes out to swim, the one that tells the world that he has a right to be there.

“Dude, there are reporters crawling all over. You really want to be the latest human interest story of the Olympics?” Jared asks.

Jensen’s face crumples back into despair. “God, you’re right. I’m so screwed.”

Jared might not want the guy to win. He might want to see him trailing in the water when Jared’s already touched the wall, but Jared isn’t some heartless jackass. “Come here,” he says. It comes out as more order than request, but he figures that Ackles will just have to forgive him for that. He’s an unmated alpha with a nose full of fertile omega. Heats make them both a little barbaric.

“What for?” Jensen asks suspiciously.

“Well, I figure that you maybe had a bit too much to drink and your teammate is just helping you back to the hotel to sleep it off,” Jared says with a shrug.

Jensen is in his arms so fast that Jared almost drops his contraband candy. “You’re a genius,” he whispers. 

Up close, Jensen’s eyes are so pretty and soft. He smells like freshly chopped wood, and even the chlorine bleached strands of his short hair seem to glimmer in the dim lighting. 

Jared shakes his head and tries to oush away the urge to coddle his teammate. He shoves his candy into Jensen’s hands. “If anybody asks, those are yours,” he grunts.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jensen’s hotel room is nicer than Jared’s. It is a suite for one thing. Jared didn’t get a suite. 

“Perk of being a long time member,” Jensen tells him as if he read his mind.

“Whatever,” Jared says, “gimme my candy.”

Jensen throws the plastic bags over at him, hitting him square in the chest. “Thanks,” he says at the same time as Jared.

Jared shrugs and rips open his Twizzlers, happily gnawing on the waxy, red string of sugar. “Want one?” he offers after a second. He doesn’t really want to share his candy, but Ackles looks so forlorn and pretty. Jared’s dick really likes the pretty part.

Jensen eyes the treat warily. “Think I’ll pass,” he says slowly. 

Jared chews in silence for a few minutes as they just stare at each other. Jensen shivers and occasionally a new bout of sweat crops up on his forehead, but he says nothing. 

“What’re you going to do?” Jared’s question finally breaks the quiet.

“Drop out?” Jensen asks with an almost hysterical note in his voice. “Can’t compete like this, man. And there isn’t anything I can take that’ll stop a heat once it starts. Sure, I can take stuff that’ll keep me from getting knocked up if I screw, but the heat is still going to be here come race day. Not that they’d even let me wait until then to get disqualified. Once word of this gets out I’m done for.”

Jared’s nod is sympathetic. There were enough bystanders in the crowds that Jensen’s heat scent likely wasn’t traced back to him. But that will change the instant that he is in a less crowded environment. He has to practice every day, so at most he has until tomorrow before his dreams end.

“I’m so screwed,” Jensen moans.

The sleazy, “Not yet,” mercifully doesn’t make it past Jared’s brain to mouth filter, but the idea does germinate in his head. Heats usually last a minimum of five days, but there is one way to stop it. It is a horrible, bad idea, but Jared is an athlete. He knows how much this means to Ackles.

“There’s one way around it,” he says.

“Yeah,” Jensen laughs, “I could go get myself knocked up.”

Jared doesn’t laugh with him.

Jensen sobers and looks at him. “Seriously?”

“You’re the one always going on in interviews about how you want to start a family once the Olympics are over,” he points out.

“I’m also the guy who caught his alpha fucking a college cheerleader two months ago because she, ‘Missed pussy,’” Jensen reminds him. 

“It’s just fertilizing a couple of cells to get your body to shut up about it. You don’t have to mate, don’t even have to stay pregnant. There isn’t even a guarantee you won’t miscarry,” Jared says. “I guess it just depends on how much you want your last chance.”

“So what? I just go out there and find some alpha to come back here for a good, barebacking time?”

“Who needs to go out?” Jared challenges. “Last I checked I have a knot.”

Jensen narrows his eyes. “You do, but I’m also standing in your way.”

“In your dreams,” Jared bluffs.

“Dude, come on, I’ve seen your times.”

“I don’t like cheating,” Jared tells him. “I’m already here because of it. If I get a medal, I want it to be because I beat your cowboy legged self fair and square.”

“You’re really willing to knock me up?” Jensen asks.

“Not a hardship,” Jared assures him. 

Jensen bites his lip. “Okay then. Okay,” he says as he pulls his shirt off over his head and starts going for his slacks. His heat scent isn’t nearly as strong as it will be in a couple of days, but the removal of his clothing lets out bursts of it that were trapped between cloth and skin.

It smells good, and Jared can feel his cock thicken. If they were mating, they wouldn’t fuck for a while yet. The beginning of a heat is for teasing and testing. It is a throwback to less civilized times where an omega would assess alphas to see which had the best genes for making babies. 

They call it the frenzy for a reason. The scent lures in potential studs. It taunts them with what could be theirs. The alphas would fight, and the strongest of them would then be led on a merry chase by the in heat omega. The first one to catch up would have themselves a guaranteed fertile mate. 

It is an important part of history, but history has no part of what Jared is about to do. Jensen is already fertile, at least one of his eggs will be ready to merge with one of Jared’s sperm. It might not be the ideal time of Jensen’s cycle to impregnate him, but it’ll work. It will have to work if Ackles has any hope of competing.

“You going to get naked or what?” Jensen asks.

Jared puts his candy down on the nearby table and shucks out of his clothes. “I’ll have you know that I had tickets to the badminton games that I’m giving up for this,” he says.

Jensen rolls his eyes. “I’m not that boring of a lay.”

“Wow,” Jared says as he stalks over towards the naked man, “I’ll have you know that badminton is exciting.”

“And I’m going to let you fertilize me,” Jensen deadpans. “I question my own life choices.”

Jared reaches for him, and Jensen springs away. He is halfway across the room before he stops. “Sorry,” he says, shaking his head, “instinct.”

“You sure about that?” Jared asks. His question is what makes Jensen blush. Not being naked, not arranging a pregnancy so that he can compete in a race, but Jared’s question.

“Yeah, my family is kind of rife with omegas. The chase is our thing, you know?” Jensen mumbles as he creeps back over to Jared’s side.

No, Jared didn’t know that, but he doesn’t comment. If he did, he’d probably say something about how cool that is, and he doubts Jensen wants to hear that. Jensen spends his time competing with alphas and a few betas who have little alpha syndrome. He isn’t one to show off just how omega he is.

“You smell so good,” Jensen whispers as he leans up to sniff at Jared’s neck. “I bet you have the biggest knot, don’t you?” he purrs as he wraps his hand around Jared’s cock, jerking it.

“No need to sweet talk,” Jared tells him as he puts his own hands on Jensen’s ass.

Jensen hums and rolls his hips, rubbing his behind in Jared’s grip. Jared doesn’t have a problem interpreting that instruction. His fingers delve into Jensen’s cleft. He isn’t surprised to feel slick gathering there already, but the texture of Jensen’s hole is different. It’s slightly spongy, softer than normal. His first finger slides in without resistance, but the small muscle clamps down on it when he tries to pull out.

“Sorry,” Jensen apologizes against his shoulder, “my body is kind of on the _baby now_ track at the moment. I could probably lock a beta up inside me.”

That thought doesn’t make Jared happy at all. “No beta,” he growls, “mine.”

Jensen laughs and bites at the skin right above Jared’s left nipple. “Okay, so you’re a little caveman under all those dimples.”

Jared ignores Jensen’s comment and spins the omega around so that he can slide his dick between Jensen’s ass cheeks. He’s rewarded with a gush of slick and a moan. Jensen pushes back against him, trapping his cock between the firm muscles that Jensen’s workouts have given him.

He catches the head of his dick on Jensen’s opening a couple of times, and the tease of it is too much to bear. It doesn’t take much to maneuver Jensen over to the couch. Once there, Ackles kneels on it, bracing his arms on its back, jutting his ass out like a porn star.

Jared smacks it once for effect, ignoring Jensen’s outraged shock in favor of lining up the head of his dick with that maddening hole. It opens easily to the pressure of his cock, virtually sucking it inside. Jensen’s channel is wet and tight, gripping Jared with just the right kind of pressure as he keeps pushing.

“Your dick is fucking huge,” Jensen groans.

“Not that big,” Jared says. He’s as fond of his dick size as he figures a guy can be, but he isn’t gigantic or anything.

“My alphas were all women,” Jensen tells him. 

“Oh,” is all Jared can think to say. While female knots are typically as thick as a male’s, they don’t come equipped with a penis, just an enlarged clitoris that leads the way for their knot. 

“Yeah,” Jensen agrees like Jared just said something profound. 

“You want me to…”

“I want you to fuck me so hard that my body can’t help but think you’re the world’s best baby daddy candidate,” Jensen informs him.

“You asked for it,” Jared says as he pulls out only to slam back in. It’s amazing, really. The drag of Jensen’s channel on the way out as it tries to keep him from leaving sets him on edge quicker than he expected it would. 

Jensen doesn’t seem to mind though. He isn’t exactly a vocal one. His quiet grunts could mean anything from boredom to pain to, ‘Fuck me Daddy,’ but he keeps pushing backwards onto Jared’s cock like he wants it. There is enough slick leaking out when Jared pulls out for his next thrust in that Jensen’s body is at least on board.

“Going to knot you now,” Jared says after a couple minutes of nothing but the sound of dirty, wet fucking interspersed with an occasional grunt.

“Okay,” Jensen sounds a little breathless. 

“Okay?” Jared questions.

“Yeah. Okay. Good. I’m getting boned here, what do you want? Roses and a poem?” Jensen complains.

Jared laughs and shoves in as far as he can, focusing on the way that Jensen’s body clings to him in all the right ways. His knot starts swelling before he is all the way in, and it makes a popping noise as it slides past Jensen’s entrance. Jensen’s channel tightens around him as soon as his knot it settled in place.

Jared has knotted before. He’s been tied to another person, but he has never been engaged in mutual lock before. It is kind of dirty, and he can feel his balls throb as Jensen’s ass works his knot.

“Okay. Wow,” Jared comments as he leans forward to brace his hands on the sofa back next to where Jensen is resting on his forearms. For the first time, he is glad that he is so much taller than his fellow swimmer. Jensen’s turns might be faster in the water, but Jared’s extra size makes it easier to not crush the omega he is trying to impregnate.

“Now you know why all the alphas whine about not getting their heat sex,” Jensen says.

“Eh, most of them are still jerks,” Jared responds. He is no fool. Jensen might not be his boyfriend or even a fuck buddy, but there is only one correct response to a statement like that.

“Good answer,” Jensen mumbles.

“I’m full of them,” is Jared’s cheeky reply.

“I can feel that.”

~~~~~~~~~~~

Jared spends the night in Jensen’s room. They fuck around three more times, but by the second round, Jared is certain that whatever fertilization is going to happen has already come to pass. Jensen’s heat scent starts waning. The egg won’t have implanted itself in the lining of Jensen’s womb yet. God knows Jared had to listen to his sister tell her tales of woe about getting and staying pregnant enough that he feels like an expert.

Fertilized eggs start multiplying their cells almost instantly, but they don’t actually attach to the womb until a couple of days after insemination. But that cell division will tell Jensen’s body that it doesn’t need to keep seeking out baby making sperm. His heat won’t come back again until his next cycle.

Jared wakes up to a bag of salt water taffy on the pillow next to him. It isn’t his most favorite of treats, but he figures it is the thought that counts. It is better than a note thanking him for his stud service.

He lets himself out of the room and jogs back to his own. Ackles likes to practice as early in the morning as possible, and the time is getting late. Jared doesn’t want to see is teammate again until they’re in the locker room for the race, and he has to go get his big head back in the game.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Did you hear about Ackles?” Misha Collins asks as he drops down on the bench next to Jared. He is the lone beta to make it past the qualifying rounds. He isn’t going to win, but just being in the final round is pride enough for his small country of Shewgish. Jared isn’t actually sure where Misha’s country is, just that it is small and exports kale.

“What about him?” Jared asks nonchalantly. Sure they stopped Jensen’s heat from going full blown, but maybe there was too much scent left on him, and he got disqualified anyway.

“Somebody tampered with his heat meds,” Aldis answers before Misha can share his juicy gossip.

Aldis is one of the front runners for the gold. Mikey Rosenbaum and his pal Welling round out the top three for the competition. Jared is secretly hoping at least one of them gets cramps.

“Thankfully, I had a backup with me,” Jensen says, creeping up on them from out of nowhere.

Jared smothers his laugh with a cough. He knows exactly what backed up where.

“Rumor is that it was one of the coaches. That true?” Aldis asks.

Jensen shrugs. “Don’t know.”

“I heard it was Sheppard,” Misha says.

Jared sucks in his breath. Mark Sheppard is his coach. He used to be Jensen’s until they had a falling out. Mark has never talked about it, but once Jensen switched to Sebastian Roché his times improved. Mark is a little sore about that.

Jensen scowls. “Sheppard is a B-grade hack, but he isn’t about to throw away his name on a ‘girl-boy’ like me. Now break it up, I have some swim trunks to get into.”

Aldis and Misha float away, but Jared stays put. “How are you?” he asks.

“I just spent the morning with seven different noses up my ass. That isn’t as fun as it sounds.”

“But you’re good to race?” 

“Yeah, vote was six to one that the scent wasn’t severe enough to warrant banning,” Jensen tells him. “Judge number seven is an asshole.”

Jared sniffs automatically. The barest taste of heat rolls through his nose onto his tongue, but it isn’t anything that is going to have him popping wood unless he thinks about it. Jensen doesn’t smell pregnant, but that doesn’t mean anything. He won’t have enough baby hormones in his blood to change his scent for another few months.

“Look, Jared,” Jensen says hesitantly, “I’m going to beat these bastards today.”

“That’s a good plan,” Jared responds easily. He even adds on an encouraging smile.

“I mean it,” Jensen says. “Omegas run; don’t we? So I figure I might as well use that to my advantage.”

“Omegas run to get caught,” Jared reminds him.

“My point exactly,” Jensen says with a wink before pulling his warm-up suit on over his swim trunks and sauntering away.

Jared swallows hard. It wouldn’t be cheating. Nobody needs to know what is going on in his head when he is racing. It just depends on if he thinks Jensen is going to be leading the pack or not. There isn’t much glory in catching a fifth place omega. But if Jensen’s plan to treat the race like a mating run is a good one, he is going to be up front. All Jared has to do is catch him.

~~~~~~~~~

The race is over quickly, though Jared would swear that it felt like forever in the pool. His inner alpha had been desperate to be the one to win. Jensen’s scent had been faint, washed out by the smell of chlorine and distance. Their lanes hadn’t been close together, Jensen’s compulsory swims had earned him a better spot in the pool.

But what he couldn’t smell of Jensen had been more than made up for by his fellow alphas. The stench of them had spurred Jared on to swim faster, turn more viciously and just plain pursue. Jared’s time is up on the leader board.

Unless the judges find something wrong, he is going to be walking home with a silver medal around his neck. It feels great, but it doesn’t feel as good as it should. Jensen’s name is number one, and his time is so far ahead of Jared’s that it is making Aldis weep. It isn’t a world record not even an Olympic one. But it is Jensen’s personal best, and the camera crews are eating it up.

They’ll be on to Jared in a moment. A surprise one-two finish is going to make some great headlines back home. Jared is going to be a hero of sorts, the beloved sidekick to overcomer Jensen Ackles: The Omega Who Could.

But all Jared can think about is how he wasn’t fast enough. He couldn’t catch Jensen. And if he couldn’t catch him, then he should never have bred him in the first place.

It is a ridiculous, throwback thought pattern. Jared knows it as sure as he knows how to spell his own name. That doesn’t keep the feeling from growing in his head and drowning out the national anthem at the medal ceremony.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Jared doesn’t see much of Jensen in the aftermath of the race. Ackles has the middle leg of a relay left to swim, and Jared is just hanging around the Olympic Village resting on his laurels, signing autograph books and posing for pictures with really desperate sports enthusiasts. 

Jensen didn’t even come out for the celebratory drinks after their big win. He’d mumbled something about keeping on top of things and had begged off with an apologetic smile. Jared wants to be bitter about that. He helped Ackles get that gold after all. 

But Jared knows the thought is uncharitable. Ackles helped him get his silver too. More than that, the guy has a reputation for being dedicated. It is in his character to keep in line even though he already has what he came for.

The USA team takes second in the relay, but it isn’t Jensen’s speed that slows them down. Their anchor screws up on his turn. He times his jump too late and comes up for air too soon. It’s a mess, and Jared is glad he wasn’t subbed in after his ‘shocking’ placement. He’d hate to have contributed to that mess.

The trip back home is even more exhausting than Jared thought it would be. He isn’t the boy that all the news shows want to book, but he is still a celebrity. He does parades and cuts ribbons and watches Ackles do a thousand and one interviews about what his win means for aspiring omega athletes everywhere.

After a while, the hubbub dies down. Swimming, like most of the summer games sports, only holds the public imagination for so long before they go back to the old standbys of baseball, football, basketball and golf. That suits Jared just fine. Ackles might’ve announced his retirement, but Jared has to get back on his training regimen.

Mark pushes him about as hard as he always does, and Jared wonders if maybe he should see if Roché would consider taking him on. The man did wonders for Jensen’s career. Maybe he has some sort of special gift for coaching aging athletes.

The thought nags at him, but Jared doesn’t pick up the phone and call. Calling Roché would be committing himself to finding a new coach. Gossip moves fast, and Jared knows he doesn’t swim near fast enough to out maneuver it.

His indecisiveness makes him grumpy, so when a voice yells to him in the street on his way home from practice one day, Jared ignores it. He has three boxes of Chinese takeout that he intends to devour once he gets back to his place. He doesn’t want to take the time to play nice with the random stranger who managed to recognize him. 

Unfortunately for him, the stranger isn’t in the mood to let go. “God damned long legs,” the man pants as he runs up behind Jared. “You should’ve gone into speed walking.”

Jared turns around, about to tell the guy just where to get off when his brain registers the fact that he knows that voice. Ackles looks different, softer since he’d last seen him. He’s let his hair grow out into a thick mess, and his face is rounder.

“Jensen,” Jared says dumbly.

“Yeah. Hi,” the other man responds awkwardly.

“What’re you doing around here?” Jared asks.

“Tracking you down,” Jensen admits. “Look, can we maybe go to your apartment?”

It’s an odd request, but the look on Jensen’s face says that Jared doesn’t want to have this discussion on the sidewalk. So Jared nods and leads the way to his apartment complex. Jensen trails behind silently.

Jared’s apartment is thankfully clean. One of the first things he did with his money when he started getting good sponsorship deals was hire a cleaning service. He spends too much time training to spend his free hours vacuuming and dusting.

“You mind if I eat?” he asks as he drops his takeout cartons on the counter. 

“Knock yourself out,” Jensen says, settling on one of Jared’s rarely used kitchen stools. He doesn’t take his coat off, doesn’t make himself comfortable.

“They taking away our medals?” Jared blurts out before Jensen can open his mouth to explain himself. That seems like the most likely reason for Jensen’s visit. Jared doesn’t want to become tabloid fodder, but he will fight it if the committee tries.

“No,” Jensen says with a shake of his head. “This is more personal.”

“More personal?” Jared echoes as he forks in a bite of his broccoli and chicken. He can’t imagine that something could get more personal than losing a crowning achievement.

“You know that thing we did?” Jensen asks hesitantly.

Jared snorts and nods. “I have a vague recollection of it, yes.”

“Well, I’m still pregnant.”

Jared swallows his bite of food without chewing. It hurts going down, but the burn doesn’t distract from the fact that his former teammate is still carrying his progeny. Which, really, Jensen never promised to get rid of it. Jared should’ve seen this coming.

“You always were going on about wanting to start a family and have kids when you were done racing,” he says dumbly.

“I wasn’t lying or playing into some popular stereotype. I really wanted kids, want kids,” Jensen corrects himself. “But you know how my fiancée went and cheated on me. I could’ve gone and found a sperm donor, but it seemed like such a waste of good genes, you know? Why terminate a pregnancy only to start over?”

Jared knows that there are a lot of things he should be feeling and saying at the moment. But what comes out of his mouth is the one thought that has been bugging him. “They aren’t that good.”

Jensen’s eyebrows fly up. “You have some sort of chromosomal defect I need to know about?”

“No,” Jared says with a shake of his head, “but I would never have caught you. If, you know, you’d run for me like you wanted.”

“Like my body wanted,” Jensen corrects, “and how do you know that?”

“Because I didn’t!” Jared tells him, stabbing at his pork lo mein with unwarranted force.

Jensen rolls his eyes. “Jared, I was in the best shape of my life at the time.”

“So was I,” Jared shoots back.

“You weren’t,” Jensen disagrees, “but be realistic. We’re both athletes. Who comes out on top can change any given day.”

“Try telling my ego that,” Jared mumbles.

“I don’t think your ego needs to hear it. You’ve been beaten often enough that you know where your limitations are. I think you’re fixating on a biological impulse here. You’re an alpha. You want to be the best because that is who gets picked to father the babies. But Jared, if you’re going to play that game, you have to remember that I’m the one who gets to set the criteria for what is best. Not everything is about speed and strength.”

Jared shakes his head. “You realize that you just told me to apply logic to a genetic urge, right?”

Jensen shrugs. “I never said my wisdom was infallible. Take, for example, the predicament I’ve gotten us into.”

Jared nods and cracks open his carton of eggrolls. “Neither of us thought that through exactly. I mean, it’s not like we reached an agreement beyond me fucking you to see if we could get your heat to stop.”

“We didn’t, but we should now,” Jensen points out. “Kind of why I’m here. I’m about to start scenting if not outright showing. Right now only my doctor knows, but I’m going to have to tell the world something when Jensen Ackles shows up pregnant.”

“Yeah,” Jared agrees.

“So look, I’m not here asking you for child support or father duty or anything like that. If you want to play anonymous sperm donor, I’ll have my lawyer draft up an agreement for it. No hard feelings,” Jensen offers.

“What if the kid wants to know later though? That’s normal, right? Wanting to know where you come from?” Jared asks.

“Well, I think that would have to be your choice. It isn’t like I don’t know who the father is. If or when that happens, I can contact you to see what you want to do. Or if you’re sure you don’t want to be known, then I can just tell my child that the conditions were strictly anonymous.”

“What if I don’t want to go with either of those options?” Jared asks. “That is going to be my child. What if I want, you know, partial custody?”

To his credit, Jensen doesn’t look surprised by Jared’s question. “We’d have to work something out then. I’m not going to deny you basic visitation or anything. But you’re a swimmer, Jared. You’re going to be travelling a lot. I’m not going to be up for a fifty-fifty split.”

The thought irks Jared even though he knows it is reasonable. He has lost more than one girlfriend because of his training and competition schedule. Children requite far more attention than a fully grown woman. No court in their right mind would give him a child for that amount of time with the way that his life is. 

“What about you?” Jared asks.

“What about me?”

“You’re going to have a heavy schedule yourself,” Jared points out. “Rumor is that you’re going to be coaching or going into acting or something.”

“Been keeping tabs on me?” Jensen sounds almost pleased.

Jared shrugs and bites down on an eggroll to avoid answering.

“I don’t know. The plan was to start coaching, maybe open my own swim center. I’m not going to lie, I had at one point thought about acting, but I’m not sure that action flicks gel all that well with the baby belly,” Jensen answers, soft smile playing at his lips. His right hand finds its way to his stomach, touching it though the windbreaker he has on.

“You like being pregnant,” Jared says dumbly.

In an instant, the soft look is gone, replaced with a defiant one. “You going to make something of it?”

Jared holds his hands up and shakes his head. “Just an observation, man. I wasn’t, you know, insinuating stuff about you being an omega or whatever.”

Jensen deflates and looks a bit sheepish. “Sorry, I just… Stereotypes aren’t my thing, but I embody a few of them. It kinda pisses me off, you know? Like my body and brain couldn’t decide whether I wanted to be the mold breaking icon or the stay at home omega who talked his alpha into a passel of rugrats.”

“I got no reference,” Jared admits. “But for what it is worth, I don’t think you’re either. You’re like, Superman or something. Winning races, having babies, looking like some sort of supermodel,” Jared stops himself with a blush. 

“Yeah, I’m a real catch. Ask all the alphas who walked out on me,” Jensen huffs.

“Sucky thing about not being normal is that normal relationships don’t work out. I learned that one myself,” Jared says.

Jensen’s smile returns, but it isn’t the soft one that he’d been sporting earlier. It is less secretive and directed solely at Jared. “Look, I know that I dropped this on you suddenly. I don’t want you to rush into a decision, so I’m going to give you my number. Think about it for a while. I’ll be in town for a bit, but you have a while after I leave too. I would’ve talked to you about it sooner, but I wanted to make certain I had a good chance of carrying to term.”

“What if I…” Jared starts to say.

“What if you’ve made your decision already? You might’ve, but I doubt it. For the sake of me and the babies, take some time.” Jensen says as he slides off the stool and begins to move towards Jared’s door.

“Babies?” Jared calls out after him.

Jensen flushes bright red as he halts in his tracks. “I forgot to mention that, huh? I’m not living out _The Parent Trap _. Just remember that,” he says as he darts out Jared’s door.__

Jared frowns down at his chicken and broccoli and dumps it in with his pork lo mein like he originally intended. His culinary masterpiece doesn’t make him as happy as it normally does, but his stomach doesn’t care. His brain, on the other hand, can’t help but wonder if he could catch Jensen now.

~~~~~~~~~

“So first off, you’re an asshole,” Jared says when Jensen opens the door to his hotel room. 

“I can live with that,” Jensen admits as he gestures for him to come in.

“You’re like some sort of drive-by-bomber of shocking information,” Jared accuses as he flops down on the king sized bed that takes up the majority of the room.

“I think you might’ve just mixed metaphors, but do go on,” Jensen says evenly as he sits down in the solitary chair in the room.

“If I was still back in Texas, I’d drag you to the altar and make you marry me because it was the proper thing to do,” Jared informs him.

“And once I got out of the rope you’d have used to hogtie me into submission, I’d blow your kneecaps off with the pistol my grandma bought me when I was sixteen,” Jensen easily rejoins.

“Good, so you understand that I can’t have my babies out in the world not knowing that I’m their daddy.”

“That was your speech to tell me you wanted to work out a custody arrangement?” Jensen’s bemusement is clear in the way his eyes crinkle.

“Nope, that was my way of saying that I want you to become my new swim coach,” Jared tells him. It is gratifying to be the one to shock Ackles. He honestly gets a little thrill from it.

“I…”

“It’s just a four year commitment. You already signed up for an eighteen year minimum one,” Jared says.

“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea,” Jensen says slowly.

“Why? You already coaching one of my rivals?” Jared asks suspiciously. He’ll have to get Jensen to dump the bastard if so. Competition he can handle, rivals are a different matter.

“No, but…”

“Look, it’s a great idea. I get to see the kids. You get some coaching experience under your belt,” Jared starts ticking off his points on his fingers.

“What if that doesn’t work out?” Jensen interrupts. “I’m not even sure I can travel with twins, Jared.”

“Other people do it,” Jared points out. “Coaching is going to require travel, you know that. If I’m along, I can help take care of them. And you’re not going to be with me all the time. I’ve had to travel solo to meets before.”

Jensen shrugs, but Jared can see he has won that point at least. Any profession that Jensen takes is going to require some sort of travel. Even high school teams compete and sportscasters have to go on location. 

“Coaching you would be a bit unseemly, don’t you think?” Jensen asks.

“Dude, have you not been in the world I’ve been in? Everybody bangs everybody else. If you really want, we can say that it was some sort of arrangement between us. You wanted babies; I wanted to be a daddy. We thought that we’d combine our great gene pools to create super swimmers.”

Jensen arches a solitary eyebrow. “I thought that it was your ‘super swimmers’ that got us here in the first place.”

“Was that a joke? It was a joke!” Jared crows. “Jensen Ackles has a sense of humor!”

“You’re a child,” Jensen accuses, smiling.

“You’re having my child, children,” Jared corrects. “Come on, what’s the worst that can happen? You find out you don’t like me. The travel gets too rough. You discover you hate coaching. It will still give us time to get to know each other and be with the kids.”

“That sounds dangerously like you’re trying to date me.”

“I know. That’s what makes it perfect. I’m hot. You’re hot. We have swimming, Texas and height in common. Me more than you on that last one. So we have as reasonable a chance as anybody to hit it off. If we don’t, then we’ll at least have an appreciation of each other’s beliefs for any future decisions on child rearing,” Jared points out. “That and I really want an Olympic gold medal.”

“You realize I can’t guarantee you that last one, right? You’d be better off with Sebastian. He’s proven and…”

“Sebastian didn’t get me my silver; you did,” Jared tells him.

“By leading you on a pseudo-mating chase,” Jensen retorts.

“You knew it would work though. Or at least thought it might. I could use a little bit of out of the box thinking here,” Jared says with a wave of his hand down his torso. “Come on, what do you say? Get to know each other properly instead of sharing some mutual prerace glares?”

Jensen bites his lips and stares at the wall for a few seconds. “It would be a hell of a feather in my cap if I took an aging swimmer and got him a gold on my first coaching gig,” he finally says.

Fist pumping isn’t the most mature thing that Jared could do at that moment, but he does it anyway. “Just you wait, you’re gonna love me.”


End file.
